Waltz of the Damned
by Land Among The Stars
Summary: When Naminé vanishes into a new world, it's up to Roxas to find her and bring her home again. One problem; Roxas only has 24 hours to find the three keys that will save them both or risk becoming prisoners for life. And to make matters worse, he must do this while avoiding the antics of one particularly indecent redheaded King who's hell-bent on keeping him in his world forever.


**A/N:** Well, well, well, what do we have here? Is this an actual chapter story? Why, yes it is! There will be eventual AkuRoku in this, but it's going to be more of an adventurous story than anything else! As always, reviews/constructive critiques are greatly appreciated.

**Warnings:** Language

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

**Waltz of the Damned**

* * *

Chapter One

Without too much concern, Roxas Nomura apathetically flipped through the countless number of channels on the family's meager television, finding absolutely nothing stimulating enough to really sit down and watch. Figuring another run-through might produce something of interest, he started channel surfing for the third time since plopping himself down on the worn-out sofa. All he was really doing was buying time before his three good friends showed up to steal him away from the boredom slowly creeping over his existence. At least, this is what he had _planned_ on doing before his mother stepped into the living room, putting in the expensive earrings that his father had given to her as an anniversary present earlier in the day.

"Roxas, remember that you have to watch your sister tonight. Your father and I are going out, but we'll be home in the morning," she turned to face the blond who was staring up at her from his slouched position on the couch; his eyebrow arched in question. "Don't give me that look."

"But I was going to go out tonight with Hayner, Pence, and Olette!" he whined, grabbing a throw pillow to hide his face behind. The woman just shook her head disapprovingly.

"No buts, Roxas! It's our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I told you that this was happening last week! You can call your friends and reschedule for some other time."

"Naminé's fourteen; she's old enough to stay by herself. You let me stay by myself when I was her age," he reasoned, throwing the pillow towards the end of the couch in frustration. He sat up, readying himself for a battle that was sure to come from this inconvenient situation at hand. There was no way she was going to ruin his Friday night! He barely got weekends off from work as it was!

"Not overnight, Roxas," she let out an irritated sigh, rubbing her temples. Roxas thought he might actually win this fight until she turned to walk back up the stairs and left with her parting words hanging in the air, "Watch Naminé or you can consider yourself grounded from going out at all for two months."

"Oh, c'mon! This is so unfair! You can't just spring this on me at the last second!" he yelled at her retreating form. An infuriating chuckle came from somewhere upstairs and Roxas growled, clenching his fists. His mother drove him up the freaking wall when she laughed at his anger. That was the one thing you didn't do to the teenager.

"I told you last week about the plans, and since I'm the mom, what I say goes," came the giggly response and Roxas threw himself backward on the couch, palming his cerulean eyes in complete aggravation. There was no winning this fight after all and he released an exasperated sigh in defeat. It wasn't like he hated his sister. He loved the girl dearly and would do anything to keep her safe, but he was eighteen for crying out loud! He wanted to go out with his friends on the weekends and do teenager things –not babysit a girl who was capable of watching herself.

Why oh why did his parents have to be so overprotective of her? They babied the poor girl growing up so much, which is why she was such a nervous wreck all the time. She hardly talked to people around school and was bordering on having a social-anxiety disorder, which Roxas tried futilely to avoid by desperately helping her through those situations. She might as well have been a ghost drifting through life, because that seemed to be how she treated life. Naminé even looked the part – pale skin and dull blond hair because she hardly went out.

Roxas was glad for one thing, though, and that was Naminé's passion for art. Whenever times were tough for the young blond, she would retreat back to her room and draw – sometimes for hours on end. Sometimes, Roxas would have to physically remove her from her drawing table so that she could at least sit down and eat dinner with the rest of the family. Drawing just seemed to be the one thing that really helped her. That refreshing look on her pale face she gave after pouring all of her anxieties out on paper was enough to give Roxas hope that Naminé would snap out of whatever sheltered state she was stuck in. He was going to have to go off to college soon and god only knows what would happen to his sister once he left. He didn't like to think about it. He even contemplated not going to college because the concern was that brutal.

If their parents weren't so blind to the fact that their only daughter was living a pitiful existence because of their incessant need to shelter and protect, he wouldn't have to be so concerned. But because they were, he had taken it upon himself to be there for the fourteen-year-old, which in all honestly, was tiring and precisely why he needed one night to unwind with his friends.

Roxas supposed he could take Naminé with, but he knew that he'd be asking for a death wish if his mother and father ever found out. That, and Naminé would most likely fall into a panic attack being surrounded by people she didn't know very well if they were to actually go out and do something in public. Not that Hayner, Pence, and Olette were strangers – quite the opposite really. Besides Roxas, they were the closest thing she had to real friends, but the four-year age gap proved to be a bit of problem sometimes if they ever wanted to go out and participate in events that were limited to…well…_adults_.

Grabbing the forgotten pillow he had thrown earlier, he shoved it under his blond head and sighed, returning to his channel surfing. Going out would have to wait. As much as he resented his parents for destroying the young girl's self-esteem, he didn't exactly want to ruin their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary because of it. He wasn't that much of a bad person. And of course, when his parents were finally ready to leave, he reluctantly peeled himself off the couch long enough to wish them a good time and promised to watch Naminé.

Naminé watched quietly from the top of the staircase as Roxas waved one last time to his retreating parents and closed the door behind them. He turned and caught her gaze, giving her a soft smile. She frowned, starting down the stairs, and followed Roxas into the kitchen where the boy was grabbing something out of the fridge.

"I'm sorry you couldn't go out because of me," she said quietly, not wanting to make eye contact with her borther. Roxas shook his head, walking over to the gloomy girl. He gave her a quick hug and placed the cold can of soda he had just gotten out of the fridge on the back of her neck. She squeaked and jumped backwards, rubbing the numb spot that can had been pressed on.

"Don't be so sad, Nami," he cracked the can open, taking a swig, "I'll survive. It's just one night." Roxas grinned before pulling her into a real hug. "C'mon, let's go find something on TV to watch. Okay? I'll even let you choose." Naminé returned the smile and followed Roxas back to the living room, taking the spot that he was in before. He threw himself onto the loveseat and pulled up the foot rest, tossing the remote over the Naminé. She thanked him and very quickly settled on a channel about fine art appraisals, much to Roxas' displeasure.

At some point during the night, Roxas had fallen fast asleep on the loveseat, only waking up long enough to wish Naminé a goodnight as she made her way back up stairs. The next time the blond woke up was three in the morning when Naminé was bent in front of him, nudging his shoulder gently. He groaned, trying to get his eyes to focus in the dark room. "What's up?" he whispered, pushing himself up on his right arm while his left hand rubbed at his sleep-filled cobalt eyes.

Naminé kneeled in front of him and he instantly took notice of the scared pout she was sporting. He gave her a curious stare and then suddenly, like magic, the dark room lit up as a bolt of what Roxas assumed to be lightning streaked across the sky. Naminé gasped and buried her flaxen head in the couch, her whole body convulsing when a loud crack of thunder followed. "Oh…" he realized what was going on and let her climb into his waiting arms.

The heavy rain was violently splattering off the roof of their once tranquil, little apartment. Roxas grimaced, listening to the howling wind that was ripping through the alleyways between the apartment complexes. He hadn't even been aware that there was a storm until Naminé was shaking him awake. He was somewhat surprised that it hadn't woken him up sooner. Then he wondered where it had all came from. There were no storms in the forecast until the following week. How could the weatherman not predict this storm? It seemed as though it could be compared to a hurricane – not something that just _springs up_ out of nowhere.

Almost right after that thought, the most unsettling, deafening roar of thunder shook the entire apartment. Roxas was almost certain that something outside had been struck by that lost bolt; he hoped it hadn't been the house. He glanced down feeling Naminé shaking uncontrollably in his arms. The poor girl had social anxiety and astraphobia and he realized it was probably a good thing that he hadn't convinced his mom to let her stay home alone. She probably would have fainted from being so petrified. He suddenly felt a little guilty and pulled Naminé up so that he could bring her up to her room.

"Roxas, no, I don't want to go!" she pleaded, tugging on his sleeve so that she could grab his attention.

"You'll feel better in your room. Don't worry, I'll be there," he gave her a reassuring smile and they made their way upstairs, Roxas stopping at the top to flick on the hall light. Naminé quickly crawled back into bed, yanking the covers over her head while Roxas went to fetch a chair. "See, I'll be right here." Another roar of thunder shook the walls and the windows trembled in place. Suddenly, the little apartment was plunged back into darkness, this time even startling the elder Nomura sibling.

"Shit…" he muttered, desperately feeling around for his phone. His hands finally landing on the slim device, he lit it up and urgently set the brightness as high as it would go. Roxas observed his little sister's eyes were as wide as dinner plates and her hyperventilating and the driving force of the rain was the only two sounds the blond could hear for the time being. She then yanked the covers over her quivering body and he stood up abruptly, promising to be right back. "I'm going to go get some candles. The power probably won't be back on until morning."

"You're g-going to be s-super q-quick, right?" Naminé's terrified voice called from under the covers. Roxas chuckled, patting the lump under the duvet.

"I promise," and he shined his phone towards the door as he approached it. "Don't go anywhere now."

"Haha, v-very funny…" she muttered, clutching her blankets closer to her trembling body.

Roxas stepped into the pitch black hallway, using the small amount of light that his phone produced as a guide; his feet carried him to the closet down the hall where he knew his parents kept spare candles in case of power outages. He heaved out a sigh; this was really not the time for his parents to be gone. It was hard enough dealing with one of Naminé's issues, but two at the same time was a nightmare.

He grabbed the handle and flung open the closet door, the light of his phone instantly falling upon several half melted candles and a mini lighter. "Aha!" he reached in and grabbed the candlesticks, lighting the wicks up immediately and pocketing his phone for time being. This would have to do until the power came back on. Roxas closed the door with a satisfied smile and then he heard it.

His name shrieked and a blood curdling scream that followed.

It came from Naminé's room.

"Naminé!" he shouted, dropping one of the candlesticks in panic. The flame extinguished itself immediately, but Roxas didn't even stop look back. Once he heard that scream he instantaneously sprinted towards his little sister's bedroom. That was not a normal scream. He had never heard that kind of sound come out of Naminé's mouth in the fourteen years she had been living. That scream was one of danger; a desperate cry for help.

Roxas body slammed the door open and it bounced off the all, creating a nice gash in the drywall. He looked around frantically, searching for the young girl who wasn't in bed anymore. She wasn't anywhere he could plainly see. He brought the candle over to the bed and threw back the covers. All that remained was the wrinkled sheets where her body was lying not three minutes earlier.

"Fuck!" he hissed, running over to the window – the closed window. He opened it and stuck his head out, searching for anything that resembled his sister or looked out of the ordinary, but his search came up empty. He hadn't even heard the window open or close. Roxas spun around in a blind panic, feeling like there was something watching him from the corner of her room. Nothing was there, though. He dragged a hand through his blond spikes, feeling the nervous sweat gathering at his hairline. "Naminé!" he called frantically, running back into the hallway. He tried looking in every single room – upstairs and downstairs, but still came up empty handed.

Roxas made his way back up to Naminé's bedroom and sat on her bed completely at a loss of what to do. His sister vanished into thin air. Gone. Just like that. He let out a strangled noise before completely falling to pieced. Tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes and he frantically wiped them away with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve. How could she just up and disappear like that?

Was this some kind of a joke?

It couldn't be. Naminé wouldn't pull something like that on him and he knew that even if she wanted to, she'd be too scared to actually do it. He let his head drop into his hands in resignation and clenched his blue eyes firmly shut, hoping that this would be nightmare and that he would suddenly wake up. Naminé would be right where he left her and they could move on and go to bed. The once raging storm was now just a pitter-patter of rain and Roxas yanked hard on his spikes to try to get a hold of himself. He opened his eyes.

Naminé really was gone.

Then Roxas felt something – a very slight something; something that he easily wouldn't have felt had his senses not been heightened from his MIA sister. There had been an ever so slight tug at his pajama pant-clad leg and he nearly had a heart attack. Thinking it was Naminé after all; Roxas dropped to his hands and knees and used the light of the candle to illuminate the cramped space under her bed.

But nothing was there. Just some old sketchbooks and charcoal pencils.

He sat back beyond puzzled and terribly frightened.

What was going on? Where was Naminé? If it wasn't her, then what did he just feel? He made to stand up, but was yanked back down violently. Something had grabbed a hold of his ankle. Roxas let out a startled yelp and felt his body being dragged underneath the bed. He lunged forward and grabbed the leg of the bed, holding on tightly. Whatever had his ankle tightened its grip - its sharp nails cutting deep into his flesh. He started feverishly shouting for help – for anyone to come and save him from whatever the fuck was dragging him under the bed.

Daring a look back, he inhaled sharply when his cerulean orbs met beady yellow eyes. The black shadow that accompanied them tugged harder, moving up the boy's leg. Roxas' face twisted up in pain as he desperately clung to the bed for dear life, feeling several more pairs of claws digging at both his legs.

"L-let me go!" he yelled, trying to drag his body back to safety. Kicking wildly at whatever the creature was, hoping to get free, he accidentally lost his grip; his fingers slipped from the wood. He let out his own blood curdling scream as he was hastily dragged under the bed.

The last thing he saw was his sister's bedroom fading away with the candle light as his body was pulled into a deep, black abyss.


End file.
